Politico: No Scandal Behind Disappearance of IRS Emails

Politico, the left-wing site that has nevercome across a Republican scandal it didn’t flog to death (3 Scott Walker stories in 5 hours) or a Democrat scandal it wanted anything to do with, assured its readers Thursday that there is no scandal behind the missing IRS emails. There’s nothing to see here, Politico wants us to believe.

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With Politico’s usual unnamed sources as experts, Politico headlines the feature with the kind of wording that undoubtedly made White House hearts jump for joy: “Sources: Lois Lerner’s emails likely gone forever”.

By attempting to create a narrative that says the emails cannot be retrieved, Politico is obviously trying to undermine any investigation into the missing emails as folly, especially an investigation like the one Republican Rep. Darrell Issa has suggested, that would attempt to retrieve the emails.

Quite matter-of-factly, Politico describes the loss of the emails as equal parts “standard government procedure” when it comes to recycling back-up data coupled with a perfectly innocent hard drive crash.

Politico’s lack of skepticism in this piece is as corrupt as it is impressive. These two paragraphs brilliantly set the GOP up as hyper-partisans about to embark on an anti-science quest:

“IT experts have weighed in and said yes — we can get those” emails, said Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) earlier Wednesday.

The latest news suggests such professionals may never get the chance to try again — and the IRS has even said its criminal investigators who specialize in rebuilding hard drives to recover hidden information from criminals were unable to restore the data back in 2011. But this is only likely to further enrage Republicans, who are fuming over the matter and suspect Washington officials drove the selective [IRS] scrutiny [of the tea party].

When it comes to scandals that might hurt Democrats (especially Barack Obama) or the overall crusade for larger government, Politico has an uncanny way of locating anonymous sources who will assure everyone that nothing untoward occurred, which sets up a political dynamic that allows Democrats and the media to claim that any attempt to say different is just another example of Republican overreach from right-wing fanatics who hate the president because he’s black.

Because it allows Politico to be more useful to the left-wing cause than being honest about their biases would, Politico poses as an objective news outlet.